Constellations
by mixed.vinyl
Summary: In the end, it all came down to him. It was Voldemort who tore apart all those families, but it was also Voldemort who created so many new ones. Of course, Cari Rosier would never put it quite so poetically. Flowers and feelings weren't really her thing.
1. Seventh Heaven

In my usual multi-tasking/procrastinating/sporadic fashion, I have started another story. Hopefully this gets farther along and at a faster rate than some of the others. No promises as to updates though. I just started first year, and engineering is not exactly the most conducive to spare time or hobbies. Or, you know, a life in general. Epsilon Delta proofs we must do!

This is a bit of a rewrite of the abandoned Concerto in Cat. May it turn out better than its poor predecessor.

As always, reviews are very much appreciated.

_- Li_

Guess what? Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling. I bet you had no idea.

* * *

><p><strong>CONSTELLATIONS<strong>

**.seventh heaven.**

* * *

><p>The first of September dawned bright and early, full of blue sky and pearly clouds. It was one of those glorious late summer days that came only a few times in a year when everything from the golden sunlight to the light breeze blowing through the trees was perfect. Even the usual London fog had dissipated, leaving in its wake a cacophony of screeching, hooting and chirping birds that had even the latest risers up with the sun.<p>

There were at least two people, however, who were completely oblivious to the weather outside. In the topmost guestroom of the Leaky Cauldron, Cari Rosier was having a heated argument with her mother.

"Mum, you _really _don't need to come. I can make it to King's Cross by myself."

Mrs. Rosier shooed her daughter away and began to tug hard on the large trunk in the centre of the floor. It refused to budge. She pulled harder, but all that happened was that the trunk burst free of its padlock with a loud bang and sent Mrs. Rosier, along with several books and robes, flying. Cari quickly ran forward to sit on the trunk before it could cause any more damage. Her mother, slightly dazed, picked herself up slowly.

"Oh dear," she murmured, surveying the small explosion of school supplies around her. "Did I do all that?"

"It's all right," said Cari, biting back the sharp retort just before it rolled off her tongue. She waved her wand at the scattered books and robes and they folded themselves neatly back into the trunk, which she locked with another tap from her wand. Then she turned to her mother, who was sitting on the bed, trying to pile her long, black hair back into its elaborate curls.

"I think you'd better stay here," said Cari firmly. "Sleep off the...er..." There was an awkward pause as she tried to figure out how to phrase her intentions without sounding rude. "Well, you should get some sleep," she finished lamely, making a mental note to check the dictionary later. There seemed to be a missing word in there, somewhere between the bluntness of _dead drunk_ and the fussy technicalities of _inebriation._

"But this is the last time I'll be able to see you off to Hogwarts," said Mrs. Rosier, now examining her reflection in the mirror. She pursed her lips carefully. "Dear, do you think this colour is too young for me?"

Feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on, Cari gave the bridge of her nose a sharp pinch and immediately regretted it when her eyes began to water in pain. Luckily, Mrs. Rosier took it for concern over the state of her lipstick and softened.

"Are you sure you'll be alright on your own?" she asked. She waved a hand at Cari's temperamental trunk. "You won't be able to carry that on your own."

"Tom can help me take it downstairs," Cari assured her. "And then I can take a Muggle taxi to King's Cross."

"But the platform-" began Mrs. Rosier in a worried tone.

The loud ringing of the grandfather clock beside the door drowned out the rest of the sentence. Cari checked her watch. It was already nine-thirty, and the train left at eleven. If she didn't get going soon, she was going to miss it altogether.

"I'm meeting some friends at the station," she explained quickly to her mother. Not exactly true, but it wasn't a lie either. "They'll help me get my stuff on the train,"

Mrs. Rosier hesitated for a moment. "Well," she said. "If you're absolutely certain..." But before she could finish, Cari had already started dragging her trunk down the stairs and shouting loudly for Tom, whose bad ear made it difficult for him to hear anything much quieter than a Mandrake. From the bottom of the stairs, she yelled out a goodbye to her mother, who hurried to the bedroom door.

"You'll write to me, won't you?" Mrs. Rosier called from the landing. "Won't you, dear? Cari?"

When her daughter did not reply, Mrs. Rosier withdrew back into the room with a small sigh and fell to examining herself in the full-length mirror again. Within five minutes, however, she was fully absorbed in the task and, when Tom came upstairs to inform her that Cari had departed safely, she only smiled vaguely and asked him to bring up a pot of tea and some brandy.

* * *

><p>It was half past ten by the time Cari made it to the parking lot of King's Cross station. The Muggle taxi driver dropped her off well back from the nearest entrance, dumped her trunk unceremoniously on the asphalt after her and then drove off at several miles above the speed limit, positively fuming about the state of kids these days.<p>

Perplexed as to what exactly she had done wrong, Cari shoved the Muggle change into her sweater pocket and started to tug her trunk towards the station entrance. This was easier said than done. Besides weighing about the same as a small elephant, the trunk had a nasty habit of shrieking loudly whenever it felt that it was being pulled too hard. This inclination, troublesome at the best of times, was the last thing Cari needed in a street full of Muggles, who were already casting curious looks at her. In hind sight, it probably hadn't been the greatest idea to wear a sweater with the Falmouth Falcons emblazoned across the back.

Cari was just starting to wonder if she should have let her mother come after all when she spotted two familiar figures emerging casually from behind a large trailer-tractor. Both were lugging trunks like her, and one of them was also carrying a large cage with a disgruntled looking screech owl inside. From the oddly furtive glances they were exchanging and the shocked looks on the faces of some of the passing Muggles, she guessed that they had just done something not altogether legal. With a smirk, she cleared her throat and did her best imitation of Professor McGonagall.

"Black! Potter! What do you think you're doing?"

Both figures jumped. The taller of the two turned with a forced look of innocence on his face that immediately changed into one of mild annoyance and relief when he saw Cari waving at them.

"Are you trying to get us expelled?" he demanded.

Cari only grinned and tugged her trunk across to where they were standing.

"Don't worry, Sirius, I won't tell anyone that you Apparated into a crowd full of Muggles," she said, liberating his owl from his grasp and replacing it with her trunk. Sirius took it with many dark mutters and reluctantly dragged it into the station with his own. "But I thought James' dad was driving you?"

James, who had finally deemed it safe to turn around, grimaced. "He was, but he got called into work at the last minute and Mum's in Scotland visiting relatives. She made us swear before she left that we wouldn't touch the car."

"How did you get here?" asked Sirius, scanning the station lobby. "I don't see your Mum anywhere."

"Taxi," Cari replied with a smug smile. "Should have tried it yourselves."

"I hate those Muggles drivers!" James exclaimed with unusual vehemence. "Why won't they accept Galleons, huh?"

Sirius snorted. "You'd think four years of Muggle Studies would have taught him that much," he muttered.

"Well, he doesn't exactly pay attention in class, does he? And he only took it to impress Lily."

A sudden gleam appeared in Sirius' eyes. "Speaking of impressing Evans, wait 'til you hear the news..."

He bent down to whisper in Cari's ear. She jumped back, startled, and stared at him.

"You're _joking._"

Sirius, practically bouncing on his feet with unmasked glee, patted a shell-shocked Cari on the head in mock sympathy. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it. Little Prongsie did."

James, who had figured out what they were whispering about, called Sirius something obscene that made a passing group of middle-aged women gasp. Sirius only laughed harder.

Cari shrugged off his hand. "Dumbledore made _James_ Head Boy?" she repeated incredulously. "Is he barking? He'll be murdered in a week."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Rosier," muttered James. Both Cari and Sirius pretended not to hear.

"Who's going to dare murder the _Head Boy_?" asked Sirius, needlessly emphasizing the last two words. "Maybe McGonagall, but she's not going to risk our chances at the Cup by knocking off our Captain."

"Who said anything about McGonagall?" demanded Cari. She brushed her hair out of her eyes absentmindedly. She really needed to get around to cutting it – there was no way she would be able to see on the Quidditch pitch with so much hair flying around. "Lily will throw a fit when she hears this," she said.

James, who had been walking along rather glumly beside them, not paying much attention to anything, immediately looked up. "Lily?" And he proceeded to look wildly around, as if the precocious redhead might be hiding beneath Cari's robes. Two months without the love of his life seemed to have driven him over the top, which was saying something, considering his usual state of infatuation.

She snorted at him. "Get a grip on yourself." To Sirius, she said "I just heard. Guess who the new Head Girl is?"

It took a moment for the revelation to sink in, and then James was punching the air with all the excitement of winning a Quidditch game while Cari and Sirius - and the rest of King's Cross station - looked on in silent amusement and horror.

"Well," said Sirius, grinning broadly while his best friend danced around them oblivious of the crowd of people eagerly edging away from him, "I guess he won't be turning in that resignation letter anytime soon."

Cari stopped. "He was going to resign?"

"He reckons he doesn't deserve it. I don't know what he was thinking."

"What, you don't agree?" asked Cari, raising an eyebrow. James was the last person she would have pegged out for Head Boy material. Not that he wasn't smart, or popular, or serious when he needed to be. It might have been the fact that he and Sirius had probably spent more time in detention than everyone else at Hogwarts put together,

Sirius sneaked a sideways glance at James, who was still engaged in his odd victory dance. He lowered his voice. "I dunno...I think he might be okay at it. Don't tell him I said that!" he added hastily when Cari showed signs of laughter. "His head will just explode, and that would be the end of any Lily hopes he still has."

Cari placed her hand over her heart. "I solemnly swear-"

He wrenched her hand away. "I'm serious!"

"And I'm Cari. Lovely meeting you."

"Haha, very funny," deadpanned Sirius. "You're a riot."

"I know, right?" replied Cari, and she treated him to her most innocent and winning smile. But when Sirius kept an unrelenting hold on her wrist, she sobered up.

"You really think he'll make a good Head Boy? I mean, he's not exactly typical Head Boy material, is he?"

Sirius let go of her arm. "He at least deserves a chance at it," he said. "Anyway..." He rubbed his nose awkwardly. "Dumbledore must think so, or he wouldn't make him Head Boy in the first place."

"I guess so," admitted Cari, albeit rather hesitantly. She poked Sirius' shoulder and pointed at James, whose elation had finally waned, and was now shouting at them to hurry up from the barrier between platforms nine and ten. "Well, at least one person will be happy about all this. Lily, on the other hand..."

"I can't wait to see Evans' face when she finds out."

Cari grimaced. "Don't remind me. She's going to go ballistic. I won't get any sleep at all when we get back to Hogwarts."

"Are you two going stand there chatting like a bunch of old hags all day?" interrupted James. He pointed at the clock above the barrier, which read fifteen minutes until eleven. The next moment he was gone, along with his trunk, and there was only solid wall left where he had been standing.

"We'd better go together," said Sirius, looking at the two trunks and owl between they had between them. Cari nodded, seized the other end of her trunk, and they slid sideways through the barrier.

A great cloud of grey smoke and steam greeted them on the other side. When it dissipated, a scarlet train became invisible through the crowd of trunks and students, many of whom had already changed into their black Hogwarts robes. James was nowhere in sight.

"Shall we try to find a compartment?" Cari yelled, trying to make herself heard above the screech of hundreds of owls and the even louder chatter of parents squeezing in last minute threats and goodbyes.

"What?"

"Shall we - Nevermind. Look, there's James."

She pointed at the distinctive mop of messy black hair barely visible above the crowd and they tugged their trunks after him towards the back of the train. When they reached James, he was lifting his trunk into the very last compartment. There was already another boy inside, who smiled and waved when Cari and Sirius slid the door open.

"Where's Peter?" Cari asked, staring at the empty seat below his trunk.

"Washroom. Ate something bad for breakfast," replied Remus, jumping up to help her heave her trunk onto the luggage rack. "How was your summer?"

"The usual," said Cari. She made a face somewhere between a patient smile and a grimace. Remus winced at the odd combination of expressions and she stuck her tongue out at him.

"Padfoot got himself a house," James announced loudly.

Cari promptly dropped her trunk on her foot at the news.

"A house?" she repeated, hopping on one foot and looking thunderstruck. "But you're broke! How did you manage to get a _house_?"

"His Uncle Alphard died and left Padfoot all his gold," James replied when it became obvious that all Sirius was going to do was grunt and scowl at the floor.

"Uncle Alphard died and you didn't tell me?" Cari demanded, now thoroughly indignant. "That's just plain mean."

"He's not your blood uncle. He's a Black."

"Yes, but-"

"I'm sorry," interrupted Remus, "but who are we talking about?"

"Sirius' mother's brother," Cari explained. "He used to take us around London to all the Muggle places. You know, museums and stuff. Only Black who went to Andy's wedding." She sank into a seat with a sigh. "I never knew he was sick."

"He wasn't," said Sirius quietly. "The Muggle police found his body in the London Underground. It was all over their news because they couldn't find anything wrong with him."

"Other than the fact that he was dead?" said Cari with false bravado. She had gone very pale and was chewing a hole into her lower lip, running the words through her head again, just in case she'd heard something wrong. Remus sat down beside her and silently handed her a Chocolate Frog.

"How come you didn't mention all of this before?" asked James, whose grin had disappeared. "You had all summer."

"You didn't ask," Sirius replied bluntly. "Anyway, I found out back in May, and none of you were exactly talking to me back then, were you? It seemed stupid to bring it up after two months."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the compartment, the kind that would never have happened a year ago. Cari bit into her Frog for the sake of having something to do and immediately regretted it. The sound of her chewing was easily the loudest thing they could hear.

At the end of last term, Sirius and James had had a fight that lasted well over a month. She had never quite figured out what it was about, although she gathered that Remus had been involved too, as he had been just as furious with both James and Sirius. For awhile, it had looked like the end of their friendship, and Cari had waited on tenterhooks with an equally anxious Peter for some sign of relenting.

And then, just as quickly as it had started, it had fizzled out and everything had gone back to the way it had been, just in time for the start of vacation.

Except that it wasn't the same. Not really. She bit into the Frog's head.

In that brief month of stony, mutual silence, Sirius had gotten himself a girlfriend, James had developed a guilty conscience (however small and sporadic it might be) and Remus, already quiet and bookish, had withdrawn even further into his homework. As for Cari, she had discovered that being the sole confidant of three moody, seventeen-year-old boys was a kind of torture comparable to sitting through double History of Magic, and that even she could not handle so much male pigheadedness in one dormitory. Only Peter had managed to emerge through it all unscathed - but Peter would always be Peter, and Severus Snape would wash his hair before he became anything other than shy, awkward, worshipping little Peter. That, Cari supposed, was the best thing about being Peter's friend, but she doubted even his everlasting simplicity would have helped much just then.

* * *

><p>The rest of the trip to Hogwarts was as disappointing as its first five minutes. When the whistle blew, James and Remus headed off to the Prefects' compartment and did not return. Peter showed up half an hour in, his skin a delicate shade of green, and he, Cari and Sirius had just settled in to play a game of Exploding Snap when Emily Fawcett, Sirius' new Ravenclaw girlfriend, dragged him off to Merlin knew where. He didn't return either, so Cari and Peter had to resort to playing chess and Gobstones, two games that neither of them were particularly good at. All in all, Cari was rather relieved when the Hogwarts Express finally screeched to a halt around dusk. She hurriedly pulled on her robes, switched her wand from her sweater pocket to her robes and joined everyone else in the queue for carriages, thinking that she would at least be able to have a proper conversation with her friends at the feast.<p>

Because Cari and Peter had been in the last compartment, everyone else was already at the table when they got there. She sat down between Remus and a third year she knew nothing about, except that he was taller than her, and so, probably not a very pleasant character.

"Hope the class this year is small," James muttered, eyeing the ragged Sorting Hat sitting in front of the teachers' table with a dirty look disproportionate to its size. "I'm starving."

"Didn't they feed you in the Prefects' compartment?" asked Peter.

"It takes more than a couple of Pumpkin Pasties to deal with Evans' temper."

Remus rolled his eyes. "You should talk. I nearly had to sit on you just to stop you from hexing Snape."

"He was staring at Evans!" James protested. "Staring! Like he wanted to eat her or something!"

"Lots of boys stare at Lily," said Cari. She pointed to where Lily was sitting, several feet down the table, and sure enough, there was a group of sixth year boys close by, whispering and casting furtive glances at her. They reminded Cari of the girls who, up until last May, had always been giggling after Sirius. Emily had put an end to it with a few well-aimed hexes.

"They think she's attractive," Sirius added.

"Do you?" James demanded.

Sirius held up both hands in surrender. "Calm down, mate. I've already got a girlfriend, remember? Anyway, Evans is practically my future sister-in-law."

"What, does Reg-"

"He's talking about _you_, you idiot," said Cari, just as the doors of the Great Hall burst open, and Professor McGonagall and her troop of first years came marching in. "Reg's too chicken to marry a Muggle-born anyway," she added, lowering her voice to a whisper as the four house tables fell silent and the first years took their place in front of the teachers' table.

It was easiest the longest Sorting Cari had ever sat through, not because the class was particularly big, or because she herself was hungry, but because James' stomach kept making loud rumbling noises. The more she tried not to think about them, to focus on the Sorting, the more she wanted to laugh. Just when she thought it was done and Professor McGonagall had cleared away the Sorting Hat, Dumbledore rose in his chair and spread his hands out for silence.

The last of the applause for the newly sorted students died out. All four tables looked up at the Headmaster expectantly. In the silence, James' stomach was even more audible.

"Welcome," said Dumbledore, smiling, "to another year at Hogwarts. To all our first years, I hope you will allow us to fill your heads with some assorted nonsense over the next few months. To those of you who are returning, I'm sure you're itching to test out some of your newly acquired talents on our unsuspecting staff."

Here, he looked pointedly at James and Sirius, both of whom snickered loudly.

"But before you get started, while I still have your attention, there are several announcements that must be made. First of all, I would like you to join me in congratulating our new Head Boy and Girl, James Potter and Lily Evans."

There was a smattering of applause, mainly from the Gryffindors, accompanied by a much louder murmur of excited whispers travelling rapidly along the gossip chain. Cari chanced a glance down the table at Lily, and was amused to see that her face was decidedly pink.

"Second," said Dumbledore, raising his voice to be heard above the babble of chatter, "a reminder from our Quidditch Captains that tryouts for House teams will be held the first weekend of term. All interested candidates should give their names to their Heads of House. If you are interested but do not possess your own broom, please see Madam Hooch ahead of time to sign out a school broom."

"Finally, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Dorcas Meadowes!"

A plump, silver-haired witch that Cari had not noticed sitting next to Professor Slughorn smiled at the polite applause and gave them a small wave.

Sirius kicked Cari's shins under the table. "Looks like one good hex would finish her off," he muttered.

"Looks like Remus' mum," she whispered back, kicking him back. Her legs just barely reached. Sirius gave her a satisfied smirk.

Remus raised an eyebrow. "You've never even met my mum," he said. "And she looks nothing like Professor Meadowes."

"Alright, she's what your mum ought to look like, happy?" conceded Cari with a face. "Although I wonder-"

But she never got to finish, for at that moment, Dumbledore clapped his hands and the previously empty plates and goblets magically filled themselves with a cascade of food. James let out an unintelligible shout of delight and immediately set about demolishing the nearest plate of chicken. Several of the first years, still getting over the shock of an entire feast appearing out of thin air, could only stare mutely as he tackled two drumsticks at once.

Sirius bestowed a patronizing pat on the head to a dark girl with glasses who Cari was nearly certain was called Kaitlin O'Neil. "Don't worry," he assured her around his own mouthful of mashed potatoes. "You'll soon get used to the great James Potter Scoffing Machine - Oops."

In his effort to get his words straight, he had inadvertently sprayed the person sitting across from him with a large dose of food and saliva. Cari pulled a half-chewed lump of potato out of her hair.

"You git," she said, and calmly tossed a bunch of grapes at him.

Sirius, with all the reflexes of a Beater, deflected the fruit neatly into Peter's goblet, splashing James, who was sitting beside him, with pumpkin juice.

"Sorry Prongs," he said to a spluttering and indignant James, but not looking at all apologetic. "Misaimed."

"James," warned Remus under his breath, but it was too late. The newly appointed Head Boy had already snatched up a fish finger and was preparing to throw it when a hand reached across the table and grabbed his arm.

"James Potter! What do you think you're doing?"

James grinned sheepishly at the redhead with a strangle-hold on his forearm. "Evans! Er...I was just demonstrating, er, the, er-"

Cari surreptitiously removed the fish finger from James' hand and shoved it into Peter's mouth to stop him from gaping. "He was just showing the first years the proper way to throw a Quaffle." She nudged Kaitlin O'Neil under the table. "Isn't that right?"

The girl jumped. "Er...of course," she mumbled to the tureen of soup at her elbow.

Lily's eyebrows practically shot off her forehead. "Really Potter?" she said without letting go of his arm.

James winced as Sirius kicked him under the table. "Ouch. What - Yeah, for sure. Just demonstrating my amazing Quaffle throwing talents."

Lily immediately released him with a snort of disgust. "Don't believe a word he says," she said to Kaitlin kindly. "He'll give you such a huge ego you won't even be able to get off the ground, let alone throw a Quaffle."

Kaitlin nodded nervously and busied herself with her plate. Cari noticed that she was extremely careful not to look up, no doubt terrified that she would called on to back up another crazy seventh year.

"Well, that went well," said James brightly, watching Lily return to her conversation with Alice Summers and Mary Macdonald. "She's definitely interested."

"If by interested you mean interested in hexing you to Mars and back," Sirius snickered.

"Give him a break," said Remus who looked mildly impressed. "That was already loads better than on the train."

"Yeah, at least she didn't threaten to curse off your-"

"Thanks Wormtail, I get the picture," said James loudly while Remus, Sirius and Cari roared with laughed at the memory of a particularly embarrassing incident in fifth year. "Seriously," he said, trying to ignore his friends' giggles, "this is it. She's going to say yes this year, I know it.'

Cari wiped a few tears of laugher from her eyes. "No offense mate, but you've been saying the same thing every September for four years now and as far as I can tell, it's just been getting worse."

"Don't be such a killjoy Cari."

"Easy for you to say," Cari muttered darkly. "You don't have to spend all night listening to Lily detail every one of James' faults."

Sirius patted James' shoulder sympathetically.

"Take it as a compliment mate. If Evans didn't give a fig about you, she wouldn't bother taking the time to complain about your problems."

This advice made James cheer up slightly, enough to help himself to a larger than usual piece of treacle tart when the first course was replaced by plates full of pudding. Cari didn't have the heart to tell him that it was probably better for Lily to think him completely invisible than an arrogant little prat.

It was, therefore, with great apprehension that she climbed the stairs to the girls' dormitory later that night. There were three other Gryffindor girls in seventh year. Mary and Alice were already there by the time Cari got upstairs and she guessed that Lily was probably still sorting out first years downstairs. That or arguing with James. She murmured a hasty greeting and made a beeline for her bed against the window.

"How was your summer?" Mary asked.

"Uneventful," Cari mumbled, pulling her robes over her head. "You?"

Mary shrugged. "Nothing spectacular."

"Lily and I went to a Wimbourne Wasps game," said Alice eagerly. She pointed unnecessarily to the new black and yellow posters pinned up next to an older picture of a grinning, bat-wielding wizard in striped robes of the same colours.

"Oh, have you progressed to stalking now?" said Cari with a sly grin. Although a Chaser herself, Alice was devoted to the Wasps' Beater, Ludo Bagman.

Alice barely blinked. "You're just bitter that the Wasps flattened the Falmouth Falcons last season. What was the final score - three hundred and twenty to sixty?"

"At least we aren't scared of getting knocked around a little," Cari retorted, and it was true. Most of the players on the poster above her own bed looked like they had been pieced together with spare bits from St. Mungo's.

"Yeah, well-"

Mary coughed loudly and Alice subsided. While she was perfectly pleasant, Cari could not help but believe that there was something seriously wrong with Mary Macdonald, a girl infamous for her utter apathy towards Quidditch. In Cari's mind, anyone who could not get excited for the Inter-house Quidditch Cup ought to have their head examined. Even Lily, however much she despised James, could always be seen cheering loudly at every Gryffindor match.

Deprived of the Quidditch talk, Cari climbed into bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin, grinning for no particular reason. Right then, in the warmth of the familiar four-poster, with a sky of stars just visible through the window and the sound of Alice and Mary's voices humming in the background, it was hard to worry about anything. Even the imminent raging when Lily came upstairs almost seemed laughable.


	2. StarCrossed

A Happy Holidays! update. Very late. Very sporadic. Probably not very good.

Please review, as they help keep me sane and sober.

_- Li_

Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. So don't sue me. I have no money. Tuition's a bitch.

* * *

><p><strong>CONSTELLATIONS<strong>

**.star-crossed.**

* * *

><p>The next morning, Cari arrived late at breakfast, still half asleep. True to her predictions, Lily had spent half the night whispering heatedly about James' many faults while Alice nodded and mumbled the occasional agreement. It had been nearly two in the morning before she'd finally run out of complaints and had gone to bed, still huffing irritably.<p>

"You look terrible," said Remus, sliding over to make space for Cari between himself and Mary Macdonald. Peter, James and Sirius were nowhere in sight, but Cari was too tired to bother asking. She dropped onto the bench and dragged the nearest plate of food towards her.

"Thanks," she mumbled through a mouthful of bacon. "I really needed that."

"Seriously, did you get any sleep at all?"

Cari gulped down half a jug of orange juice and looked carefully along the table for signs of Lily, but she was sitting at the other end with Alice and a group of sixth-year girls. She lowered her voice anyway, just in case.

"Did you know that James has dirty fingernails?"

Remus blinked. "Sorry, _what_?"

"Yeah, me neither. But it bugs Lily, so he'd better start polishing them." She forked a slice of toast onto her plate. "And there's more. Apparently-"

At that moment, Professor McGonagall came up the Gryffindor table, handing out timetables. Cari took one look at the first class on her schedule and groaned loudly.

"Double Defence Against the Dark Arts with the Slytherins. What did I do to deserve this?"

"At least Professor Meadowes looks nice enough," said Remus, patting Cari's head sympathetically. "It shouldn't be that bad."

* * *

><p>Defence Against the Dark Arts was held in a large classroom just below Ravenclaw Tower. By the time Remus and Cari made it from the Great Hall, the rest of the class was already waiting outside the closed door, including James and Sirius. Cari and Remus forced their way through the small crowd packing the narrow corridor to where they were standing.<p>

"Where's Peter?" asked Cari, standing on tiptoes to find him. However, as she had not grown since fourth year, she found it difficult to get much higher than the shoulders of the people around her.

"He got hit in the back by a Stunning curse on the way to the Great Hall and struck his head on the stairs," replied James, frowning. "We took him to the hospital wing, but Madame Pomfrey kicked us out."

Cari dropped back down on her heels with a loud thud entirely disproportionate to her size. "Stunned? By who?"

"Knowing Pettigrew, he probably tripped over his own feet," said a low, sneering voice from behind them. James and Sirius whirled around at once, wands drawn. Remus hastily grabbed James' arm.

"Scared, Potter?" Snape taunted, his wand held tightly in front of his chest. "Going to leave the dirty work to your little _pet_ instead?"

"_You_-"

Cari seized James' other arm to keep him from jumping on Snape. "Calm down," she muttered under her breath. "He's not worth it." And she looked pointedly to where Lily was standing just a few feet away. She was chatting to Alice and Mary with her back turned to James and Snape, but Cari doubted she would remain quite as oblivious if James turned Snape into a salamander.

The sneer on Snape's face grew more pronounced. "I'd tell that to your mother instead, Rosier," he said. "Doesn't she make a regular habit of throwing herself at any wizard she can find?"

Without realizing what she was doing, Cari released James and reached for her own wand. But before she could utter a single curse, Snape was suddenly thrown backwards against the stone wall by a jet of blue light. He slid onto the floor on all fours and immediately started to grope frantically for his wand.

"That's my aunt you're insulting," Sirius hissed, wand outstretched. The rest of the class had all stopped talking and turned to see what the noise was. Through the crowd, Cari saw Lily's eyes narrow.

Snape had barely finished hauling himself and his wand off the floor when he was struck again.

"_Petrificus Totalus_!"

His limbs immediately snapped together and he toppled to the ground. Only his eyes continued to glare at Sirius with loathing while he watched his classmates, the majority of them Slytherins, laugh. How long Snape might have remained there was anyone's guess. Luckily for him, the classroom door opened at that moment and Professor Meadowes strode out. One look at Snape lying immobile the floor and Cari and Sirius standing with their wands raised above him and the grandmotherly smile on her face faded. She waved her wand and Snape sprang free.

"What," she asked quietly, "is the meaning of all this?"

One of the Slytherins who had been laughing at Snape only seconds earlier stepped forward eagerly. "Please, Professor, Severus was attacked-"

"When I want your opinion, Mr. Mulciber, I will ask you for it. Now, kindly keep your mouth shut." Professor Meadowes turned back to Snape, Cari and Sirius. "I don't care what you three were up to - I don't want to hear it and I don't want to see such behaviour from you ever again, or it will be straight to the Headmaster's office. Now get inside."

She swept back through the doors and, after a moment, the class followed her, all whispering feverishly.

"What was that about?" Cari demanded, jabbing Sirius furiously with her wand. "I could have handled him."

Sirius shrugged. "Just defending the family honour. He insulted my aunt."

"She's only your aunt by marriage," Cari pointed out, still irritated. "And since when have _you_ cared about family honour? You were just looking for a reason to hex him."

"Yeah, how come only Padfoot's allowed to jinx Snivellus?" James muttered, struggling free from Remus' grip.

"Because he doesn't have anyone that needs impressing," said Remus calmly. He nodded towards Lily. Slightly mollified, James stuck his wand back into his robes and the four of them followed the rest of the class inside. They made a beeline for the desks at the back corner, furthest away from Professor Meadowes' desk, but they'd barely taken their seats when she swooped down on them again.

"Mr. Black, Miss Rosier, up front," she ordered. With a flick of her wand, she sent their books flying to two empty desks in the very first row. "Now," she added, when Sirius showed signs of protesting, and they trudged reluctantly to their new seats. At the other side of the room, Snape was as close as he was ever going to get to dancing with glee.

"I see no reason for you to be wearing that smirk on your face, Mr. Snape, as you will be joining them." Professor Meadowes waved her wand again and this time, Snape's books soared to the front of the room.

"Now that you are all seated," she said, ignoring Snape's dark looks and Cari and Sirius' mutinous mutters and turning to face the rest of the class, "there are a few things that I need to make clear to all of you. First, there will be no displays of the kind that I just saw. You will not use magic unless I instruct you to - that includes you, Miss Evans."

Lily jumped and dropped her wand, which she had been using to write notes, although on what, Cari could not guess. The blackboard hanging from the front wall was still blank, and as far as she could see, Professor Meadowes had not said anything of interest.

"Second, it is not my job to mollycoddle you. This is a N.E.W.T. course, which means you are all here because you want to be. As such, I expect you to pay attention, complete all assignments on time, and study hard. There will be no marks given for effort. You will achieve the expected results, or you will receive a zero. I must warn you now that the course material is not something that can be learned with your mind on Quidditch."

Cari quickly tore her eyes away from the window, through which she could see the golden hoops of the Quidditch pitch and tried to focus her attention on Professor Meadowes. She was finding it rather difficult to look at her; it was like watching a cute and cuddly Niffler breathe fire.

"Finally, you cannot hope to defend yourself against the Dark Arts if you do not understand them. You will see things in this class that you will not encounter elsewhere - unless you should find yourself in Lord Voldemort's inner circle."

There was a collective shudder around the room. Professor Meadowes ignored it.

"I must emphasize, however, that it is _defence_ you are here to learn. However, if any of you do not feel up to the task of dealing with such magic, I suggest you leave now."

She cast an impassive look around the room. There was a scattering of coughing and fidgeting, but no one got up.

"Now that that's settled," she said, flicking her wand at a huge stack of ancient textbooks on her desk so that they flew in the air and began distributing themselves, "I want you all to take a copy. This will be your textbook for the remainder of the year, so I expect you to bring it to every class. These books will be returned to me in June, so don't even think about writing any obscene comments in them."

Cari caught one of the books, _The Dark Arts Revealed_, as they flew by and flipped through it curiously. It was the oldest, yellowest, and by far the smelliest book she had ever seen, and that included her brief forays into the restricted section of the library. The pages were full of nauseating descriptions of various curses, accompanied by full colour illustrations. Feeling slightly sick, Cari glanced sideways at Sirius.

"No wonder this wasn't on our booklist," she said when Professor Meadowes turned her back. "Can you see Dumbledore letting us read this stuff?"

"Bet Snivellus loves this," Sirius muttered with a darkly significant look in Snape's direction. Sure enough, he was already buried deep in the book, his body hunched over it like a treasure. Only his large nose was visible beyond the curtain of oily hair flopping down onto his desk.

"Yeah, he-"

"Miss Rosier, thank you for volunteering to scrub out the Hospital Wing at lunch," said Professor Meadowes loudly from the back of the class. "I'm sure Madame Pomfrey could use the extra help. And Mr. Black, why don't you join her, since you seem so interested in what she has to say." She smiled at the pair of them and Cari was reminded of the photo of a group of Veela pinned up over Sirius' bed in the dormitory. They'd been the wearing the exact same expression as Professor Meadowes when they'd started to transform, a half sweet, half threatening smile.

"Now that Miss Rosier and Mr. Black have so kindly rejoined us," Professor Meadowes continued, still wearing the same freakish smile, "perhaps we can get on with the lesson. I want you to all turn to page twelve and read the section on creating Inferi. Who can tell me, based on their creation, what the best method is for destroying them? Miss Summers?"

Alice started off on a long spiel that sounded like gibberish to Cari. She flipped to page twelve and tried her hardest to take in the words on the page and not think about washing sheets and scrubbing bedpans.

"I almost wish we had old Mitchell back," said James when they emerged two hours later, burdened with a three foot long essay on destroying Inferi. "I mean, he was rubbish, but at least he was a laugh."

"We've got our N.E.W.T.s in June, she's only trying to prepare us," said Remus fairly, tugging his schedule out of his bag with great difficulty. "Look, we've got a free period next. Should we go up and check on Wormtail?"

"Get a head start on cleaning out the Hospital Wing," Cari muttered.

James laughed. "Congrats, by the way," he said, giving her a mock bow. "Detention in the first class. Not even I've been able to manage that."

"I'm beating you now," said Sirius with a grin. "You owe me a Galleon."

"You're laughing now, wait until you get to the Hospital Wing," Cari warned him. "I got a detention there once - it was brutal."

As it turned out, there was nothing to clean in the Hospital Wing, and no sign of Peter either. After much wheedling on Remus' part, Madame Pomfrey promised Cari and Sirius that she would tell Professor Meadowes they had served their detention and all four of them left, marvelling at their luck.

"I still can't believe she let us off," said Cari as they climbed up the spiral steps to Gryffindor Tower. "She's never that nice."

"It's because of Moony," said Sirius gleefully. "She just can't resist his charms."

Remus flushed. "Shut up Padfoot. Madame Pomfrey's old enough to be your mother."

"So is Rosmerta. Doesn't stop Sirius from flirting shamelessly."

Far from being embarrassed, Sirius actually thanked Cari and then proceeded to list off all of the bartender's admirable qualities, which seemed unending. He might have gone on all the way into the common room, were it not for Remus' quiet reminder that Emily, however charming she looked, could produce one hell of a Stunner. Sirius sobered up immediately.

"Jitterbug," he said to the Fat Lady, who swung open obligingly.

Peter was sitting in one of the large armchairs by the fire, apparently staring into space. He jumped when James sat down beside him. Cari felt an odd surge of pity for him. He looked like he was expecting to be Stunned again any minute.

"How's your head?" she asked.

"Fine, fine" Peter replied, looking around nervously. "Madame Pomfrey fixed it in about five minutes."

"How come you didn't come to class after?" said Remus and Cari almost laughed. Trust Remus to be more worried about making it to class than the state of his best friend's brains.

"Never mind that," said Sirius impatiently before Peter could reply. "Why go to class if you've got a perfect excuse not to? Anyway, it's not like Wormtail missed much. All we did was read that ancient textbook."

Remus, who had just pulled out his copy of _The Dark Arts Revealed_, frowned slightly from behind the book, but said nothing. After a moment of watching him attempt to start his essay, Cari stood up.

"Where're you going?" Remus asked, looking up from his blank parchment. "We don't have class for another half our."

"To find Alice," she said, checking her watch. "I think Lily has Arithmancy right now, and I'm pretty sure Alice dropped it after that fiasco with Professor Vector last year."

"Since when have you been friends with Alice Summers?" Sirius demanded. He sounded rather taken aback by the news that Cari had other acquaintances, let alone friends.

"Since we've been playing Quidditch together for five years," replied Cari as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

"Yeah, but you never went running to find her before," Sirius argued. "Who's going to judge our eating contests if you're going to be off with Alice all the time?"

"Should have thought of that before you ditched me last year," Cari said acidly. "Did you just expect me to sit around and wait for you three to stop acting like idiots?"

She picked up her bag, swung it over her shoulder, and marched out of the common room.

"What's up with her?" said James weakly once Cari had disappeared through the portrait hole. "She's not usually so...irritable."

"Maybe Evans is rubbing off on her," Sirius suggested. "They've been sleeping together for six years." He winced. "That didn't come out right, did it?"

James shook his head fervently. "Definitely not."

* * *

><p>After her spontaneous outburst, Cari spent the rest of the week either in class or sitting awkwardly in the common room with Alice. Lily had made several suspicious remarks about her presence, none of which she could be blamed for, as Cari had once spent a month in fifth year tagging along after Alice and Lily in the hopes of persuading the latter to go out with James.<p>

Cari herself couldn't explain why she was so irritated with them, only that, after the first, brief excitement at seeing them after the summer, she suddenly had no wish to be in their presence. Peter seemed to feel the same - she frequently saw him browsing the library shelves on his own, or else ducking out of sight when one of his friends passed around the corner. Yet strangely, she found that she didn't really want to talk to him either. They had spent an unprecedented amount of time together at the end of last term, trying to get James, Sirius and Remus to talk to each other again, but she still felt oddly uncomfortable with him. It might have been the distinct impression he'd given of keeping some kind of secret from her, something to do with the argument between James, Sirius and Remus. It gave her a strangely hollow feeling to know that, after six years of friendship, they still felt it necessary to keep her in the dark.

But something happened on Saturday morning that drove all thoughts of anger out of Cari's head. She trooped down to the Quidditch pitch after breakfast with Alice for practice, only to find the rest of the team yelling at James. A group of wary Gryffindors stood looking on nearby.

"You can't do that, that's not fair!" Sirius shouted, a very ugly look on his face.

James held his hands up. "Look, he's improved-"

"How do you know, you haven't even seen-"

"What about Venetia-"

"When she hears-"

"At least make him try out-"

"_It isn't fair_."

"What's going on?" Cari whispered to Sirius, forgetting that she wasn't supposed to be talking to him. "Why aren't we having practice?"

"James is being a dick," Sirius replied viciously. "He kicked Venetia off the team."

Cari gaped at him in disbelief. "_What_? But she's the best Beater we've had for ages!"

"Tell that to him," said Sirius. "He wants to play that fourth year reserve, McKinnon, instead. I don't know what he's thinking."

"Hang on a minute," said Alice slowly from Cari's other side. "He's playing Mason? Damn. I know what this is about."

"Explain then," Sirius spat out. He seemed to be having difficulty controlling his anger, and Cari couldn't blame him. She had seen Mason McKinnon at tryouts last year, and while he had been a passable Beater, good enough to make it onto the reserve team, he was a far cry from Venetia Keele, who could not only aim, but could dodge Bludgers herself faster than the Snitch, and had already had several offers from League teams.

"Mason's sister is in our year," Alice explained as quietly as she could over the tirade of angry voices. "You know, Marlene McKinnon, in Ravenclaw? She's friends with Lily."

"So?" Cari demanded, failing to see what any of this had to do with the boy's ability to play Quidditch.

"So James must've heard Lily and Marlene talking about how much they want Mason to make the team!" said Alice. "Lily really likes Mason - she spends Christmas with the McKinnons sometimes. They're Muggles and they live near her parents. I'll bet you anything James is only putting Mason on the team so he can get it on with Lily."

It was a mark of how devoted Alice was to Quidditch that she sounded quite disgusted that the younger brother of one of her best friends was going to be playing Beater for Gryffindor.

There was moment of stunned silence, broken by James' attempts to calm his team. And then-

"No way. I don't believe it. He wouldn't do something so stupid. James loves Quidditch."

"He loves Evans more," said Sirius, who looked as if he would have quite liked to strangle both James and Lily. "And he's been getting desperate over the summer. This is his last shot to impress her."

"_By sacrificing Quidditch_?"

"He's done stupider things for Evans," said Sirius grimly, and there was no arguing with him on that point. James would have done anything if he thought it could secure him Lily's affections.

"WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP AND LISTEN?" James bellowed suddenly.

The team stopped yelling and fell to staring mutinously at their captain.

"Look," he said hoarsely, "I realize that I probably should have talked it over with you guys first. But I've asked Venetia, and she's fine with it. She agrees that we need to...er, give younger players a chance."

"Like hell she does," Lane Wood, the Keeper, muttered. "She's just too nice to say anything else."

"Anyway," James continued, "she's already had a bunch of offers to play Quidditch after she leaves Hogwarts. She's good enough. She doesn't need this."

"You're replacing her because she's too good?" said Cari incredulously. "Where's the logic in that?"

"Why not kick yourself off too?" said Chelsey Williams, a shy, fourth year who played Chaser and rarely ever spoke during practice. "Everybody's always talking about how good you are. Then maybe we could have a proper captain."

James closed his mouth abruptly. Cari saw him sneak a glance over at Sirius, hoping for backup, but he did nothing except to glare back. James looked away.

"You can take the rest of the day off," he said in a hollow sort of voice. "Get used to our new Beater. We'll start training tomorrow morning."

He turned around and walked back towards the castle dejectedly. Even his hair, normally on end, seemed to have wilted.

* * *

><p>"How was practice?"<p>

Cari sank down in a chair next to Remus, who was editing her Charms essay with one hand and breaking pieces of chocolate off of a giant Honeydukes slab with the other. Peter was, once again, off somewhere on his own, and James had not yet returned to the common room. Her guess was that he was probably sulking somewhere on the grounds, too ashamed to show his face to the rest of his team. It gave her a strange thrill of satisfaction to know that he was just as miserable as she was.

"Don't even mention it," she sighed, helping herself to some chocolate. "It was a complete-"

"Fiasco," completed Sirius, dropping down on Remus' other side. He stared down at the essay on the table. "How come you'll do Cari's homework but not mine?"

"She pays me well," said Remus, gesturing absentmindedly at the chocolate and crossing out one of Cari's weaker sentences. "Don't change the subject. What happened at practice?"

Neither Cari nor Sirius answered him. After a moment, Remus looked up and caught sight of the identical looks on the faces. He pushed the essay away.

"That bad?"

"You know Mason McKinnon in fourth year?"

Remus scratched his chin with his quill. "What, that kid with hedgehog hair? Isn't he Marlene's brother?"

"Yes," said Cari bitterly, now shredding the corner of the chocolate wrapper to bits. "So of course, we have to be all nice to him because _somebody_ is so desperate to get into Lily's good books that he's willing to botch the entire Quidditch season to make her happy and it'll probably cost Gryffindor the House Cup too, but _he_ doesn't care about anyone but his precious _Evans_ and-"

"Cari," said Remus gravely, "calm down. Remember to breathe."

Cari took a great gulp of air and continued on.

"-what she thinks even though this is supposed to be the Gryffindor team-"

"Do you sense a period coming anytime soon?" Remus whispered with a grin, but Sirius did not smile. If anything, his face looked like it would be stuck forever in a permanent scowl. With a heavy sigh, Remus picked up his quill again. "If anyone feels like explaining what this is all about," he announced loudly to the room at large, "let me know, will you?"

Cari stopped abruptly mid-sentence. "Sorry," she said sheepishly. "Still haven't gotten over the habit of-"

"Ranting?" Remus suggested with a slight smirk.

A sharp retort rose to the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back and gave him an uncharacteristically meek smile, having just caught sight of her half-edited essay on the table. Unfortunately, Sirius saw her sideways glance and snorted. Not under any obligation to pacify _his _feelings, she elbowed him sharply in the ribs. He rolled his eyes, but kept his mouth shut.

"So what's the deal with Mason?" said Remus patiently. "What's he done that's going to botch the whole Quidditch season?"

"It's not so much a question of what he did as it is of what James did," Cari replied.

"And that would be..."

"He made Mason Beater," she said with a heavy sigh of reluctance. Somehow, saying out loud seemed to cement it firmly in the grounds of undeniable fact. She had been wishing (admittedly without much hope) that she would somehow wake up to find that it was all just a garish nightmare, but there seemed little likelihood of that happening now.

Remus stared, aghast, at Sirius. "What - he kicked you off?"

"We'd had a better chance of winning if he had."

"Thanks a lot, Rosier," Sirius muttered, but neither Cari nor Remus heard him.

"But what about Venetia?" Remus asked, looking slightly shell-shocked. "She's the best Beater in Hogwarts!"

"Hence the botching of the whole Quidditch season thing," said Cari. "Among other things." In spite of Remus' reminder to restrain herself, she was just about ready to start off on another spiel. Fortunately, Remus cut her off before she could start.

"You know what we need to do?" he asked. There was a scheming spark in his eyes that went over both his friends.

"Yeah," said Sirius darkly. "Throw James off the-"

"_Get him a date_." Remus looked around at Cari and Sirius. "C'mon, isn't it obvious? You said it yourselves - Prongs is only doing this to get Lily to go out with him. So all you need to do is-"

"Get Lily to go out with him," Sirius finished. Although normally James' staunchest supporter when it came to the love of his life, he laughed sourly. "Fat chance of that."

Personally, Cari was inclined to agree with him, but Remus waved the objection off carelessly. "We just need to do it the right way. _Make_ Lily like him." He turned to Cari. "You said she doesn't like his dirty nails, right? We can start there."

Cari cast him a doubtful look. "I don't think clean nails are going to help James' odds much," she said. "Lily's objections are a lot more..._personal_ than that."

"So we'll find out what they are," said Remus, now positively grinning. He was wearing the kind of manic expression usually reserved for new Honeydukes chocolates.

Sirius was considerably less enthused. "And we do that, how?"

To Cari's utter bewilderment, Remus pointed dramatically at her.

"Alice."


End file.
